


Don’t tell me to be f-ing calm

by Estelle (Fielding)



Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [17]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Episode: s06e09 The Golden Child, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-04-25 09:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22289530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fielding/pseuds/Estelle
Summary: “I may never have the mantel, but it doesn't matter, because I have you.”After his rescue from the Brazilian mafia, Jake finally realizes just how annoying David can be. Takes place during The Golden Child.
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588849
Comments: 15
Kudos: 160





	Don’t tell me to be f-ing calm

**Author's Note:**

> Story No. 17 of my Season 7 Countdown Project.

The adrenaline wears off fast and suddenly Jake is bent over at the back of the SUV puking into the gutter. He still feels pretty badass though – he was knocked unconscious and kidnapped by a gang of sexy Brazilian drug runners (who hit _hard_, b-t-w) from whom he escaped almost entirely (_fine_, not really) on his own.

Then Amy comes up and rubs his back in these small soothing circles that make his eyes well up, and she wraps a thin blanket that smells like stale police car around his shoulders and helps him sit down on the curb away from the mess he’s made, and that’s decidedly less badass. But he’s shivering and his head is throbbing and he’s still pretty pukey, and also his wife is amazing, so he doesn’t care much.

“You’re not really cold,” says a voice from overhead, as Jake pulls the blanket closer around himself. Jake squints up at the voice but the man it came from is standing in front of a streetlamp, which is casting a halo of light around his head and leaving his face in shadows.

“Huh?” Jake says.

“David, can you check on the ETA on the ambulance?” says Amy.

“David,” Jake repeats, and then nods slowly. He forgot about David. “I forgot about David.”

The brother in question says the ambulance is on the way and then, “But I’m a certified EMT anyway,” and he crouches in front of Jake and takes Jake’s chin in his hand.

“Uh-”

“You’re not shivering from the cold,” David tells him. Jake trembles and clutches at his blanket and Amy wraps an arm around his shoulders. It’s winter, Jake recalls. It’s cold out. “You just feel cold.”

“What,” Jake says, “is the difference between being cold and feeling cold?”

David laughs. “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?”

He does not actually answer the question. He does ask Jake a bunch of questions though – how he’s feeling, if his head hurts, if he’s dizzy, if he remembers his name and his date of birth and what day of the week it is.

“I feel cold,” Jake says. David laughs. Jake says he’s dizzy too, and his head hurts like a mother-f and he knows his name and his birthday but he wouldn’t have any idea what day of the week it was even if he wasn’t obviously concussed.

“Whoa, let’s not jump to conclusions,” David says. “Let the expert decide if we’re dealing with a concussion.”

“Oh, is the ambulance here?” Amy says, and Jake feels her sit up straight, senses her looking around.

“Haha,” David says. “I’m the expert, sis.”

“And you don’t think I have a concussion?” Jake says. Jake has had many concussions in his life. So many. He knows what they feel like. He is currently concussed.

“It’s hard to say,” David says. He squints into Jake’s eyes, waves a finger back and forth that Jake doesn’t bother trying to track. “You may think you have a concussion but it’s really just a headache. Or you may just be upset from the trauma you endured. That kind of thing can really shake you up.”

“David-” Amy says.

“It’s a concussion,” Jake says. He thinks if he turned his head just the right-wrong way he could make himself throw up all over David’s shoes. He wonders if it would be worth it.

David says, “I think I would know if you had a concussion. I’ve never actually had one myself, my doctor says I have an extremely elastic brain, but my previous partner had one once and he had all the classic symptoms.”

“Oh my God,” Jake says, and groans.

Amy stiffens and twists to look him in the face, brows furrowed in concern. “What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s happening,” Jake says.

“What’s happening? Jake?”

“Mansplaining,” Jake says, burying his face in his hands. “I’m being mansplained to. I’m a mansplainee. Oh my God, Ames, I’m so sorry. This is the worst.”

David laughs. “I”m not mansplaining, I’m just explaining something that you may not understand.”

Jake throws up on David’s shoes.

+++

Amy ushers her brother away and then sits beside Jake again, letting him lean his head on her shoulder while she cards her fingers very, very gently through his hair.

“Your brother is a bad man, Amy,” he says, and she laughs so quietly he can barely hear her, just feel the warm brush of air over the side of his face.

“He saved you,” Amy says.

“Saved myself.”

“True, but he shot out the tires on the car. He got them to stop so we could back you up.” Jake feels her take a shuddery breath. “If they’d gotten away with you-”

Jake lifts his head when she cuts herself off. She’s staring at her hand in her lap, and he takes it in his own. “They didn’t,” he says.

When Amy looks up her eyes are shining and he can tell, even with his somewhat blurred vision and the distracting, dancing glow of blue and red police lights, that she’s about a breath away from tears.

“Hey,” he says, and he leans in to kiss her, soft and chaste, because his breath probably smells vomity but he needs her to know he’s here and he’s safe.

“I love you. So much,” she says.

“I love you,” he says, and rests his head on her shoulder again. “Also, it’s freakin’ cold out here and I definitely have a concussion and we should probably get me checked out.”

+++

Amy makes him stay put while she seeks out an actual paramedic. Jake can hear David somewhere on the other side of the street, his voice carrying over the crackle of police radios and the melodic Portugeuse chatter among the Brazilians, who are leaning sexily against the SUV with their hands cuffed behind their backs. David is talking about shooting out the tires of their car, how he’s never done it before tonight but it’s just a matter of simple physics, making split-second calculations that come naturally to him, apparently.

David is literally nauseating.

Jake’s met the entire Santiago family. They can be gruff and competitive and passive aggressive and petty, but they’re mostly pretty great – even David, who did help rescue him, after all.

But Jake married the very best of them all. Amy Santiago is his fireplace mantel photo. And if they had a piano and stairs, she’d be his piano and staircase photos too.

When Amy returns a few minutes later with two paramedics behind her, she sits by his side again and takes his hand. The paramedics kneel in front of him, snapping on blue gloves, and before they can get started Jake turns to his amazing wife and says, “You’re all of my photos, babe.”

She smiles and pats his head gently.

**Author's Note:**

> *Title is from Uniform On (Bash Brothers).
> 
> *I wrote this one mostly just because I like Jake hurt/comfort (I admit this countdown project is self-indulgent!). I realize Jake doesn’t actually get hit that hard during this episode, but *hand wave* artistic license.
> 
> *Also the idea of Jake being mansplained to really delighted me.


End file.
